Pardoned woman moving on from criminal past

Pastor Beverly "Bam" Crawford, founder of Bible Enrichment Fellowship International Church in Inglewood, prays over Celeste Phillips after Philips delivers an emotional testimonial about turning her life around. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 6

Celeste Phillips gets an encouraging handshake after giving a testimonial at Bible Enrichment Fellowship International Church in Inglewood, about her pardon from Gov. Jerry Brown and how she turned her life around. She was pardoned on Good Friday for robbery and forgery. and shooting a security guard in the face in 1979. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 6

Celeste Phillips holds the letter that accompanied the pardon she received from Gov. Jerry Brown recently. Pardons "are granted infrequently and as a pardon recipient you are in a very select group," it reads in part. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 6

Celeste Phillips is particularly emotional at church after she was pardoned the governor on Good Friday. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 6

Celeste Phillips breaks down after showing assistant pastor Portia Polk the certificate of her pardon from Gov. Jerry Brown, before church at Bible Enrichment Fellowship International Church in Inglewood. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

1 of 6

Celeste Phillips was pardoned by the governor on Good Friday for shooting a security guard in the face in 1979, and for robbery and forgery. She says she has cleaned up her life and attends Bible Enrichment Fellowship International Church in Inglewood regularly where she's found spiritual and emotional connection. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The hands of a woman who shot a man in the face, swapped cash for cocaine and abandoned her toddler to get high at a drug house now clutch a large, yellow envelope holding her state-sponsored salvation.

It’s been a decades-long journey for Celeste Phillips – one that has taken her through the streets of South Central, the jails of Los Angeles and Orange counties and the gravesides of her parents and the father of her child. She’s slowly been able to work down the list she’s wronged, seeking forgiveness from each one.

God was first. Then her daughter. Her parents before they died.

But the 55-year-old Phillips still had hoped for absolution from two others. One was from the man she shot in 1978. The other was from the State of California.

On Good Friday, after more than 10 years of trying, Phillips got a phone call from Gov. Jerry Brown’s office. She was one of a few dozen ex-cons being pardoned for their crimes. On April 25, she got the official letter telling her she was square with the state. She wept.

Phillips went to church that Sunday, praising Jesus in song and raising her hands high in the air. She showed friends in the congregation the document after the service. Her hands trembled a little. She smiled a lot. She cried a bit more.

Now there is just one left on the list. She said she doesn’t even know his name. Sitting in her small Inglewood home, her lips quivered. She has no idea how to even track down the victim identified in court records only as Desmond Fitzgerald. She just knows he didn’t die the day she shot him.

“I want to apologize and ask him to forgive me,” Philips said. “I am sorry for the pain I put him through – and for his family and anybody who loved and cared for him.”

THE PARDON BUSINESS

Brown pardoned 63 people on April. 18. Most were for drug-related or burglary offenses. Only three were violent crimes – a voluntary manslaughter conviction in San Joaquin County, a hit-and-run in Santa Clara County and the assault with a deadly weapon conviction for Phillips.

The governor’s spokesman, Jim Evans, said each case is carefully considered before a pardon is granted. It is, at minimum, a 10-year process that involves clean-living and determination to clear the bureaucratic hurdles established for the process. It has fallen in and out of favor until Brown’s most recent tenure as governor.

Since 2011, Brown has issued 470 pardons. In Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s two terms between 2003 and 2010, a total of 15 pardons were issued. Gov. Gray Davis, who served a little less than five years, issued none. By contrast, Gov. Ronald Reagan in his two terms, doled out 574.

“If you’ve paid your debt to society, turned your life around and now serve your community, it ought to be recognized,“ Evans said. “That’s what this process tries to accomplish.“

Phillips began her process of seeking a pardon during the Schwarzenegger term after getting her certificate of rehabilitation in 2008. That is an order from the courts that essentially recognizes a person has moved on from past offenses and is a law-abiding member of society. Once the certificate is obtained, it automatically triggers a review by the governor’s office for obtaining a pardon.

John Garbin, a paralegal with the Los Angeles County Public Defender who handled Phillips’ case, said pardons remain rare. He’s been handling these kinds of cases for more than two decades and said in that time, out of “thousands of clients” only 41 have gotten a pardon.

“Most people call us because they can’t get jobs,” Garbin said.

“Then there are some people who are just looking for closure.”

Phillips is seeking both.

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS

On June 19, 1978, Phillips was high. Sometimes it was cocaine. This day it was PCP.

The 18-year-old was living in Hawthorne and decided she wanted to get some clothes at the mall. A pistol that had been given to her by a relative was at the bottom of her purse.

It was a sunny day and Andy Gibb’s “Shadow Dancing” was climbing the charts. Reagan was three years removed from being governor but about two years from unseating Jimmy Carter as president.

Phillips said she was getting into the gang scene by then, too. Not only did she have a gun in her purse, but a stolen credit card. She went into Casual Corners and ran up $118.55 in clothes and accessories. She had also hit a shoe store for $14.83. But the clerk, Betty Squire, was suspicious and Phillips was bold. One more attempt at swiping clothes led to a confrontation with the security guard, Fitzgerald.

Panicked, she pulled the gun out and shot him in the face.

“I was trying to get away,” she said. “I didn’t know what happened to him then. After I was caught, they charged me with murder, but he didn’t die.”

She went to court, was sentenced and served three years and eight months in jail. By the time she got out, on June 2, 1983, Irene Cara’s “What a Feeling” topped the charts and Reagan was president. She said the world seemed different to her, but she still was feeding a drug addiction.

For 12 years, she bounced around Southern California accumulating some tattoos and a few more misdemeanors. One arrest resulted in a 30-day stint in Orange County Jail for petty theft. Her brother was in jail, too. When their mother died, he attended her funeral in shackles. She managed to land a few jobs, including working for two years as a travel agent in the late ’80s.

Her daughter was born in 1992 and she lived near the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

A drug house nearby kept her loaded. A neighbor, Evelyn Hill, watched Phillips leave her daughter at a neighbor’s house to go and get high. Hill was furious and, one day, strode up to the front of the drug house and shouted for Phillips to come out and get her daughter.

“She was a mess,” Hill said. “Even later, when I was able to get her to go to church with me, it was a battle.”

Phillips wasn’t just a mess from the drugs. She was suffering from medical problems as well.

Still, Hill often was with her, determined to keep bringing her to church.

DeVonna Phillips-Harris, 20, remembers growing up as her mother struggled with the addiction. It wasn’t until Phillips-Harris was 15 and Phillips – by then clean and sober – was applying to go back to school, either to work as a nurse or with drug addicts in the probation department, that the daughter learned what the mother had done.

“I knew she was an addict, but I never paid much attention to what happened back then,” Phillips-Harris said.

“It wasn’t until Gov. Schwarzenegger didn’t grant a pardon that I asked ‘What did you do, anyway?’ When she told me, I was like, ‘wow;’ I couldn’t believe she did that.”

“Regardless, I‘m proud of her. She‘s my mom,” she said.

WELCOME BACK

The congregation is quiet and Pastor Beverly “Bam” Crawford calls Phillips to the front. The pastor holds a box of tissues at the ready. Phillips said she had hoped to get through the moment without them but wasn’t optimistic.

Near the front, Hill watched with a smile. After the service, Phillips would give the 83-year-old Hill a ride to the store.

Phillips took the microphone and told the congregation about her attending nursing school and being derailed by her past when she tried to get a license. She said how despair set in and how she “came with a whole lot of baggage.”

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.